Missing: Moth Cabinet No. 3 (Sphingidae)
After the Sphingidae disappeared,
he sensed them back to light
like Newton, stared at the pale
until bodies floated into his retina.
His eyes became wings, they flittered
back and forth from detail to detail
until the blanched rings on a Poplar moth
formed from the knots in a Batavian teak
cabinet in his bedchamber.
That night, he found the Privet, the Death’s-head
and the Lime in the blotted leather
of an East India shipping log cover.
A Cinnabar came to rest on his mouth
the day they packed his cases of taxa
into Europe-bound crates. It pressed
the red and black of its flamenco wings
against his lips, pulsed his words
through its skirts like a dancing girl
from the Sunda Kelapa. The wind
from its drumming, strong enough
to shatter thirty glass cabinets.
Elisabeth Sennitt Clough lives in South Limburg with her husband and three young children. She is writing her first collection, At or Below Sea Level, and is actively involved with the Maastricht Creative Writers’ Group. Elisabeth has been shortlisted for numerous competitions, including the Bridport Prize (2013). Twitter: @LizSennitt